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Largest finds of oil this year was made by a small producer, Heritage Oil, at the Miran West One field in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. It found nearly two billion barrels of oil and plans to drill a second well before the end of the year.
While the central government of Iraq has had a hard time attracting investors to develop its huge fields, local authorities in Kurdistan have been successfully wooing foreign producers.
The Kurdistan region of Iraq is a geological extension of the world's richest petroleum fairway, which extends from Saudi Arabia to Kurdistan. It is estimated to have around 45- 100 billion barrels of oil reserves making it one of largest in the world.
Mostly recently discovered (even excluding Kirkuk and Mosul which are essentially controlled by the federal government).
Due to geo-political conflicts, the resources in Kurdistan have been essentially untapped.
Upon the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, however, Kurdistan began to open itself to foreign investment (the tapping of the Kurdistan keg). Currently about 25 companies have been granted the Profits Sharing Contracts (PSC) from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The population is 7.549.842 million. These numbers exclude the Kurds living in the disputed provinces such as Ninawa, Kirkuk and Diyala as well as Kurds living in Arab Iraq. Kurdistan has a young population with an estimated 40% of the population being under the age of 15. Most Kurds live in the large cities such as Arbil and Sulaymania.
The ethnic make-up of Kurdistan is diverse and includes Assyrian Christians, Iraqi Turkmens and Arabs next to the Kurdish majority. The Kurds make up around 95% of Kurdistan with the remaining 5% including the minority groups.